By Jo Nova

Nothing at all about the modern era stands out as unusual at all

Thanks to David Whitehouse at NetZeroWatch who has found a remarkable paper: Pyrenean caves reveal a warmer past

The new study on stalagmites in caves of the Pyrenees shows that modern climate change is nothing compared to normal fluctuations in the last 2,500 years, when it was at times  much hotter, colder, and more volatile. Rapid shifts between temperatures were common.

The researchers looked at 8 stalagmites in 4 caves and local lake levels, but they also compared their results with other European temperature proxies and reconstructions and the pattern is consistent across the region. The Roman Warm Period was much hotter than today even though coal plants were rare.  There was a reason people wore togas.

The Dark Ages were very cold, especially around 520 – 550AD — which may be related to what the researchers call a “cataclysmic” volcanic eruption that took place in Iceland in 536AD. It was followed by two other massive volcanoes in 540 and  547AD. This effect is apparently visible in European tree rings which showed “an unprecedented, long-lasting and spatially synchronized cooling”.

Indeed, the researchers declare that volcanoes and solar variability appear to be the main drivers of the climate in SouthWestern Europe.

So finally we see one long continuous proxy record from ancient Greek times right through until 2010. The big question is why these sorts of studies are not done everywhere and all the time. It’s not like we don’t have plenty of caves with stalagmites to analyze. If the climate really was “the biggest threat to life on Earth” why are these extraordinary datasets not the top item on the wish-list of every institution that claims they cares about the climate?

There will be more to say on this remarkable paper:

Some passages from the paper discuss how these results match other studies from Europe

The cold event at ca. 540 AD (the coldest of the speleothem record) may be related to a cataclysmic volcanic eruption that took place in Iceland in 536 AD and spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere, together with the effect of two other massive eruptions in 540 and 547 AD (Sigl et al., 2015). An unprecedented, long-lasting and spatially synchronized cooling was observed in European tree-ring records associated with these large volcanic eruptions, corresponding to the LALIA period (Büntgen et al., 2016).

Some passages from the paper discuss how these results compare with many other studies from Europe and with stark moments in history.

5.2.2. Temperature variability in W Europe and the W Mediterranean during last 2500 years
There are very few high-resolution speleothem records in Europe covering the CE (Comas-Bru et al., 2020). We compare the Central Pyrenean speleothem composite with nine selected speleothems records in Europe  and northern Africa which cover with robust chronology and decadal resolution the last 2500 years (Fig.  5). One of these records is interpreted as NAO variability (Baker et al., 2015), three are paleo-precipitation reconstructions (Ait Brahim et al., 2019; Cisneros et al., 2021; Thatcher et al., 2022) and the other five are  reflecting paleo-temperature variations (Affolter et al., 2019; Fohlmeister et al., 2012; Mangini et al., 2005;  Martín-Chivelet et al., 2011; Sundqvist et al., 2010). Considering these differences in the interpretation and the fact these records are from different regions with different climates (from Sweden to Morocco), dissimilar profiles of paleoclimate variability can be expected. Still, some features are comparable and can be discussed to obtain a super-regional picture.

A. The Roman period in Europe-W Mediterranean. In Europe, and particularly in the Mediterranean region, the RP is well-known as a warm period (e.g., McCormick et al., 2012). The average sea-surface temperature in the western Mediterranean Sea was 2°C higher than the average temperature of the late centuries (Margaritelli et al., 2020). Our composite, with high values of normalized  18O values during the whole RP, and particularly from 0-200 AD, agrees with the scenario of warm temperatures (Fig. 5i). Speleothem data from the Balearic Islands (Cisneros et al., 2021) indicate a transition from humid to dry conditions along the Iberian-RP (Fig. 5c). The dry period at the end of the RP in the Balearic record, appears in agreement with a new speleothem record from northern Italy (Hu et al., 2022), suggesting that the observed drying trend was a possible contribution to the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476 AD. Record from Morocco (Ait Brahim et al., 2019), contrarily, marks a humid trend at the end of the RP (Fig. 5d). Similarly, an increase in humidity was observed in southern Iberia during the Iberian-Roman Period (Jiménez-Moreno et al., 2013; Martín-Puertas et al., 2009) thus reflecting a large spatial heterogeneity in precipitation during the RP when comparing records from the north and south of the Mediterranean basin.

REFERENCES

Bartolomé, M., Moreno, A., Sancho, C., Cacho, I., Stoll, H., Haghipour, N., Belmonte, Á., Spötl, C., Hellstrom, J., Edwards, R. L., and Cheng, H.: Reconstructing land temperature changes of the past 2,500 years using speleothems from Pyrenean caves (NE Spain), Clim. Past Discuss. [preprint], https://ift.tt/Quc0wI9, in review, 2023.

Essay by Eric Worrall

Should Electric Vehicles be banned from airports and ferries?

Five cars destroyed at Sydney Airport after battery from luxury electric vehicle ignites

By Olivia Ireland
September 12, 2023 — 4.48pm

Five cars have been destroyed at Sydney Airport after a battery from a luxury electric car burst into flames.

About 8.30pm on Monday, firefighters were called to a parking lot on Airport Drive in Mascot after flames engulfed a luxury electric car before spreading to another four vehicles.

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Research officers from Fire and Rescue’s Safety of Alternative and Renewable Energy Technologies team have also been at the scene.

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Fire and Rescue NSW Superintendent Adam Dewberry said … “There had been some problem with the car and the battery had been removed, we believe that the car has suffered some mechanical damage which can contribute to a battery breaking down and catching fire without notice.

“We don’t have a concern about this broadly, it’s not often that electric cars catch fire.”

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Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/five-cars-destroyed-at-sydney-airport-after-battery-from-luxury-electric-vehicle-ignites-20230912-p5e43h.html

The fire chief Adam Dewberry claims they don’t have a concern about this broadly, but in that case, why do they need a special fire department renewable energy technologies team?

Even if an EV needs minor accident damage to turn it into a ticking time bomb, airports are notorious for minor bumps and scrapes, lots of people arrive late and have to rush to catch their flight. If a minor bump can turn an EV into a ticking time bomb, at the very least EVs should be isolated in their own fire hazard area, especially if they show any signs of damage.

As for passenger ferries, I mean we’ve all seen what an EV can do to a vehicle transport ship – ferocious white hot flames which can’t be quenched, even by experienced maritime fire control officers.

Even if the risk is small, it’s still only a matter of time until a group of EV’s parked next to each other on board a passenger ferry catch fire and torch the entire ship, leading to massive loss of life, and lifelong injuries to survivors who inhaled toxic lithium smoke.